Comments on: Arrests in fake Craigslist "everything must go" ad rip-offhttp://boingboing.net/2008/04/02/arrests-in-fake-crai.html
Brain candy for Happy MutantsMon, 30 Mar 2015 20:24:05 +0000hourly1http://wordpress.org/?v=4.1.1By: MrsBughttp://boingboing.net/2008/04/02/arrests-in-fake-crai.html#comment-156691
Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000#comment-156691@#24 So can locking your door! :D
]]>By: David Carrollhttp://boingboing.net/2008/04/02/arrests-in-fake-crai.html#comment-156452
Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000#comment-156452Sadly I remember the days when the web was reserved for sentient beings….
]]>By: Antinoushttp://boingboing.net/2008/04/02/arrests-in-fake-crai.html#comment-156453
Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000#comment-156453If they’re in their twenties and they look that bad, I’m not sure that further punishment is warranted. They seem to be destroying themselves quite effectively without state intervention.
]]>By: Not a Doktorhttp://boingboing.net/2008/04/02/arrests-in-fake-crai.html#comment-156455
Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000#comment-156455Hey they look like almost ALL the tweaker neighbor I used* to have

*thank god

Also, one of the amazing things is the price of a saddle. They seem so mundane yet are actually hard to make.

]]>By: netsharchttp://boingboing.net/2008/04/02/arrests-in-fake-crai.html#comment-156477
Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000#comment-156477You gotta admit, that’s a pretty creative and original idea they had. Next time, find an open hotspot, or go to an internet cafe…
]]>By: el_leafohttp://boingboing.net/2008/04/02/arrests-in-fake-crai.html#comment-156996
Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000#comment-156996Oxdeadbeef, I am firmly left wing. I don’t know how I can prove this to you… does it help that I am an active, meeting-attending, money donating, pamphlet-distibuting member of a left wing party?

I suspect nothing I say will convince you now that I have broken the cardinal rule of actually questioning an idealogical party line. Oh no, we lefties are not allowed to debate, look at both sides of an issue or think for ourselves. Everything was written in stone by Marx years ago and all we have to do is turn up at civil disobedience events and follow the leader.

It’s pretty disturbing that such a simple question of where do you draw the line gets me accused of being a right-winger playing dumb to start an argument. Even if someone did that, I would say fine, bring it, I’m up for a debate and can defend my position. If you feel strongly enough about your views then no right-wing baiter is going to bother you.

Domster made a good point, that it comes down to the checks and balances and it can be a force for good. But this leads to the question of what is good. We all have our own ideas about that. When people like the above idiots and pedophiles get caught through their IPs we are cool with that, but in other cases e.g. if someone got caught arranging a drug deal, say selling weed, over the net, and they were caught by tracing their IP address, I think I and a lot of others who think weed should be legal, would not feel so easy about it. We would probably be up in arms saying tracing IP addresses is a breach of civil liberties. Wouldn’t we? Or not?

What if the net was around in the time of McCarthy and he was using IPs to trace communist activity?

And I’m not sure what you’re asking, because something being empirically bad would imply it would depend on the circumstances. (Because the consequences – what you’d be studying empirically – certainly do depend on the circumstances.) So, your question doesn’t pose a dilemma.

I suspect you meant to ask if we think they’re intrinsically bad.

Personally, I don’t think they are. I think that, provided checks and balances are met, warrants are requested, granted on the basis of evidence, etc. etc., then surveillance can often be a force for good. There are plenty of organised crime trials that show exactly that.

And the very fact that surveillance _can_ be good automatically means it’s not intrinsically bad.

]]>By: 0xdeadbeefhttp://boingboing.net/2008/04/02/arrests-in-fake-crai.html#comment-156501
Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000#comment-156501Forensic investigation is not surveillance, and presumably the cops had a legitimate warrant before the ISP gave up their identities. Anonymity is not privacy, and anonymity is a civil liberty only in specific contexts (eg. protecting whistleblowers and critics).

What am I saying? My IP address is recorded in teh server logs! I have to create an account to post to BoingBoing! Oh noes! Teh internets are run by teh Man!

I’m curious about where people play dumb, I mean, curious in the attempt to frame some stupid right-wing talking point. Is intelligence and nuance only reserved for your enemies, or does it depend on the circumstances?

]]>By: mikelotushttp://boingboing.net/2008/04/02/arrests-in-fake-crai.html#comment-156503
Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000#comment-156503People that took stuff from his house should be arrested also.
]]>By: ecoborehttp://boingboing.net/2008/04/02/arrests-in-fake-crai.html#comment-156505
Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000#comment-156505Hey,
nice looking couple.
Wouldn’t find having them for neighbors!!! NOT!!!
]]>By: Cupcake Faeriehttp://boingboing.net/2008/04/02/arrests-in-fake-crai.html#comment-156514
Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000#comment-156514Yahoo tweakers
]]>By: ribexhttp://boingboing.net/2008/04/02/arrests-in-fake-crai.html#comment-156515
Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000#comment-156515This is SO gonna be an upcoming plot on Monk or Psych or something…
]]>By: wolfriderhttp://boingboing.net/2008/04/02/arrests-in-fake-crai.html#comment-156516
Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000#comment-156516@8: No they should not. Are they dumb for just showing up without the home-owner being present and taking things at that point? Yes. But I’m sure greed took over when one person was waiting and 5 cars pulled up *enter the greed zone*. It would have been more intelligent if someone called the local Sheriff to make sure it was legit, but they did not. And hindsight is always 20/20 so do not assume that you would have acted differently in the same situation (remember you are a comp savvy type who have read stories resembling this, you are not a rural Oregonian)

Either way, this is not surveillance, it’s “you robbed a house and left foot-prints all the way back to your place”. I posted in the previous thread that I hoped the people responsible did it from their home comp, and wahoo! I was correct in my assumption of human stupidity.

]]>By: Mr Asciihttp://boingboing.net/2008/04/02/arrests-in-fake-crai.html#comment-156525
Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000#comment-156525@12: Bah, ignorance and greed are no excuse. And in this case, the “something doesn’t add up here” alarm should have been going off.

If they are given the chance to make things right and do so, then I think it can be considered a (marginally) honest mistake. But, seeing as how the original story said that when some of the opportunists were told the truth they refused to return the goods, at that point they become thieves or at the very least recipients of stolen property and should be charged.

]]>By: OMhttp://boingboing.net/2008/04/02/arrests-in-fake-crai.html#comment-157051
Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000#comment-157051…Amazing that such products of selective inbreeding could have come up with such a scam. Wonder if the bad guys had a black horse to put that stolen saddle on?
]]>By: deejayqueuehttp://boingboing.net/2008/04/02/arrests-in-fake-crai.html#comment-156541
Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000#comment-156541@ #5:

I don’t think that tracing an IP address is an invasion of privacy or an encroachment on a civil liberty. The same could be said of police searches of garbage cans on the curb. They’re put out in a public space, they’re publicly searchable. These people did a crime and they left forensic evidence on the internet.

They were not being placed under surveillance to wait for them to maybe commit a crime, the crime was already committed. The police were looking for the people who did it, regardless of their identities.

]]>By: rocketjamhttp://boingboing.net/2008/04/02/arrests-in-fake-crai.html#comment-156548
Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000#comment-156548Antinous said: If they’re in their twenties and they look that bad, I’m not sure that further punishment is warranted.

I suspect you’re correct in your evaluation of them, but I must interject that if you’ve ever had the unfortunate experience of being thrown in jail, you understand that they can pretty much make anyone look like a hardened criminal and/or bad specimen of humanity by the time they get around to taking your mugshot.

]]>By: wolfriderhttp://boingboing.net/2008/04/02/arrests-in-fake-crai.html#comment-156550
Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000#comment-156550@13: You are correct for the sub-set regarding their refusal to return something they know is stolen. However your broad comment of “People that took stuff from his house should be arrested also” does not stipulate that.

And again, do not assume you would not have acted in a similar manner if you were in the same situation. You may have a different perspective from where you sit, and being able to look at this in hindsight.

It’s a sad situation in any regard. I hope the guy gets his stuff back and I hope the two people arrested are the ones charged with the theft of everything that was taken since their actions caused the greed-storm.

]]>By: ashley927http://boingboing.net/2008/04/02/arrests-in-fake-crai.html#comment-156806
Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000#comment-156806these people are morons. anyone who knows even a little bit about computers should have known their craigslist ad could be traced.
]]>By: 0xdeadbeefhttp://boingboing.net/2008/04/02/arrests-in-fake-crai.html#comment-157063
Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000#comment-157063Sorry, Leafo, but you made a trollish post, even if you didn’t intend to, so I responded in kind. Let me make the pattern obvious:

Your Group categorically holds beliefs X, Y, Z to be true.

Yet Bad Person was thwarted in contradiction to X, Y, and Z. Does X, Y, and Z apply to you but not Bad Person?

Do you support X, Y and Z for Bad Person, or are you hypocrites?

The polite response is that you are constructing a false dichotomy, and to answer it on those terms would only serve to undermine people’s respect for civil liberties. There is no conflict between the law and your rights because “due process” is supposed to ensure they are respected. (Yeah, only in an ideal world, but it was a philosophical question.) We should not need to gut our civil liberties to catch the “bad guys”.

In the drug example, it is the law that is unjust, not the technique used to find and punish those who break it. How would it be any different than if they used a credit card, and so the police get the name of the account holder?

The problem with blanket surveillance is that it is a violation of privacy (the innocent are subjected to the same scrutiny as the criminal) and that it lends itself to the abuse of the law as a form of political intimidation and retribution. Getting specific personal information on a known lawbreaker is not surveillance.

Civil liberties are not boundaries to the law, they are part of the law. They are boundaries to those who enforce it (to prevent abuse), and to those who create it (to prevent laws which contradict our rights).

]]>By: Susan Oliverhttp://boingboing.net/2008/04/02/arrests-in-fake-crai.html#comment-156568
Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000#comment-156568I went out walking one day, and there was a brand new pedestal sink in its box, sitting on the sidewalk, marked “Free – please take”. I took, and I’m glad, because it’s a lovely sink.

If I had gone out walking and seen a sign plunked in somebody’s yard saying “Free – everything must go!” I would not take a thing unless I could verify that the offer was valid.

It doesn’t take computer savvy to determine when something is too good to be true. Frankly, this kind of greed informed by willing blindness is what also gave us the mortgage crisis.

On another note – “Mr. Herbert was lodged in lieu of $30,000 bail”! How kind of the cops to provide “lodging”! Love it.

]]>By: rushkoffhttp://boingboing.net/2008/04/02/arrests-in-fake-crai.html#comment-156570
Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000#comment-156570Wait a minute. Does this mean we have to give back the stuff?
]]>By: Mr Asciihttp://boingboing.net/2008/04/02/arrests-in-fake-crai.html#comment-156583
Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000#comment-156583@16: The original comment was not mine.
]]>By: Susan Oliverhttp://boingboing.net/2008/04/02/arrests-in-fake-crai.html#comment-156586
Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000#comment-156586Just heard on Oregon Public Broadcasting – the victim is still missing approximately $1,000 worth of belongings. While that still sucks, fortunately it sounds like far less than was earlier reported.
]]>By: Rob Cockerhamhttp://boingboing.net/2008/04/02/arrests-in-fake-crai.html#comment-156614
Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000#comment-156614How can this be prevented? Should these types of postings be flagged on Craigslist, just as a preventative measure?

Is there even a name for a crime of this type?

]]>By: hedztalezhttp://boingboing.net/2008/04/02/arrests-in-fake-crai.html#comment-156635
Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000#comment-156635I don’t think so but it seems like the right time to name it and spread it around so it becomes common knowledge.